Romy Lerner is a Lecturer in Law and Supervising Attorney with the Immigration Clinic. Lerner previously worked as a supervising attorney at Americans for Immigrant Justice (formerly Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center), where she engaged in litigation and policy advocacy on behalf of low-income immigrants.

Her work has included advocacy relating to immigration detention through monitoring conditions of detention, authoring and contributing to reports on detention center conditions, and meeting with White House officials, Department of Homeland Security representatives, and Congressional staff. Professor Lerner has served as Co-Chairperson of the Steering Committee of Detention Watch Network, a national coalition of organizations working to educate the public and policy makers about the U.S. immigration detention system and to advocate for reform.

Professor Lerner is a 2002 graduate of Columbia Law School, where she was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, a member of the Human Rights Law Review, and a teaching assistant to Professor Jack Greenberg. She received her B.A. summa cum laude from Columbia University and participated in the Oxbridge Scholars Program.

After graduating from law school, Professor Lerner worked as a litigation associate at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, LLP in New York. In 2006, she was the recipient of a Fulbright fellowship, conducting independent research on the implementation of Argentina’s immigration law in a project supported by the Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS) and Refugee Assistance Center (CAREF). Professor Lerner worked as an adjunct professor at Florida International University’s College of Law in 2008.